The Musk-Bezos Billionaire Space Rivalry Just Reached New Heights

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#1 The Musk-Bezos Billionaire Space Rivalry Just Reached New Heights

Post by bernomatic »

As I was saying...
The rivalry between billionaire space entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos may soon reach all the way to the moon.

On Feb. 27, Musk announced that his company SpaceX plans to launch two paying customers on a weeklong mission around the moon by the end of 2018. Just a few days later, word leaked that Bezos' Blue Origin aims to start delivering science experiments, human habitats and other gear to the moon by mid-2020 or so.

This isn't the first time the two men's visions have overlapped. For example, SpaceX and Blue Origin have long prioritized developing reusable rockets, technology that both Musk and Bezos have said could cut the costs of spaceflight dramatically and thereby help humanity spread its footprint out into the solar system.
and here's some promising news:
Like the Falcon Heavy, New Glenn will also be used on crewed missions, Bezos has said. Indeed, lofting people to space is a big part of both SpaceX's and Blue Origin's plans.

SpaceX is modifying its Dragon cargo capsule, which has already flown numerous uncrewed resupply missions to the International Space Station (ISS) for NASA, to carry astronauts to the orbiting lab and back. The first crewed trip to the ISS will come in mid-2018 if current schedules hold, Musk said recently. (Dragon will also carry the two paying customers on the moon mission later that year.)

Meanwhile, Blue Origin aims to launch the first crewed test flight of the six-seat New Shepard capsule this year and begin commercial crewed missions to suborbital space in 2018, company representatives have said. Crewed missions to orbit using the New Glenn system should come later, if all goes according to plan, Bezos has said.


8-) 8-) Americans launching men/women into space :!:

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Chief Cook -n- bottle washer
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